


Pity for Sparrows

by Whippoorwill



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint and Pepper are Darcy's biological parents, Darcy is adopted, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Teen Pregnancy, awful families being awful, children in tough situations, even smart teenagers can do stupid things, past consensual underage sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whippoorwill/pseuds/Whippoorwill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Pepper met as young teens, had a relationship, and had a daughter. When they go their separate ways, Pepper thinks Clint doesn't know, Clint thinks Pepper knows he knows, and Darcy knows she's adopted but she doesn't think about finding out from whom. None of them expect to meet again. </p><p>Written for an avengerkink prompt in which Darcy is Pepper's biological child. Full prompt inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

In her anxiety, Pepper dreams in memory and metaphor. It’s always the same; a moment that never happened, a time that maybe she wanted and didn't want in equal measure. In the dream, she is herself. The little bundle she holds is a matter of uncertainty, whatever she’s facing in the waking world that troubles her in her sleep. And he is her, too, her understanding of what the correct course of action is. His sight is clear and keen; he can see the path that is hidden from her by her hopes and fears.

If she is contemplating the right choice, he smiles into the blankets, maybe offers some kisses, and then passes that bundle off to someone Pepper never sees. If it is the wrong choice, his face changes, darkens, turns possessive, and he clutches that bundle close, instead.

The night before Pepper hands Tony the paperwork that will make her CEO of Stark Industries, she dreams for the first time ever that he bolts out the window with his tiny pink prize. She pays the price for ignoring that one, but it wasn't the answer she’d wanted.

It happens whenever there are momentous decisions and choices to be made, so she’s not surprised when she dreams of them/herself before Tony gathers them all together into their new home.

She hasn't seen Clint Barton since she was sixteen and lying to him, feeling their baby kick beneath her breaking heart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pepper tells Tony in Iron Man "You're all I have, too, you know." I'm about to make that true. This is all about setting up the dominoes so they can fall.

Carolina Jean Jenson wasn't sure who the father was; just a boy at a college party who’d had as much to drink as she had. It was a decent enough night and what was left of the memory was pretty nice – for about a month and a half.

She’d cursed herself that day for not locking her bedroom door. Things were always tense around the house and privacy was a laughable dream. So she should have expected her mother to barge right in at any time. She was caught red-handed, staring at that little blue plus sign.

The fight that followed, well, it was worse than their usual fights and their usual fights ended in shouting and tears and sometimes a few days at a friend’s house.

For love and for spite, she’ll admit later, she dropped out of the four year college she’d been in and used the student loan money to move into a rundown house at the far edge of town. When her parents stopped pushing for an abortion and started pushing adoption, she started picking out names. Eventually she settled on Virginia for a girl or Alaska for a boy. Her parents were furious, she was smug, and the baby really didn't seem to have much of an opinion about it, but she did blink those hazy blue eyes open when Carolina stroked that little face and said “Hey, Virginia.” It was probably approval.

The day she brought little Ginny Jenson home was the day she realized she was thankful that she hadn't locked her door the day of the pregnancy test. She’d never had a home where there was love before. It was worth everything to her.

She’d lost all but one of her friends by the time Ginny was born. Jack Potts, though, was a tough bastard who had come out of a home much like hers. They’d been best friends for years; he loved her and he loved her new baby. A month after Ginny was born he dropped out of high school so he could watch her while Carolina started a job as a secretary in a local law firm. His parents were furious, even more than they had been when he’d taken a job at Bargain Bin. (By small town standards, the Potts had money; he didn't need a _job._ By contrast, and by way of explaining how their friendship began, the Jensons did not have money.)

Jack did not give a rat’s ass what his parents thought; like Carolina, he’d found love at last. For love and for spite, he began calling Virginia ‘his’ baby. The very hour he turned eighteen he moved in with Carolina and Virginia in that shabby little house on the outskirts of town and switched to third shift at Bargain Bin because the student loan money Carolina was using had run out. The Potts’ rage and disdain went straight off the charts and expanded to include a six month old baby.

Things went on that way, close and warm in the drafty old house, cold and tense everywhere else, for long enough that they actually became common-law spouses.

It wasn't their doing; Jack and Carolina shrugged it off, things weren't like that between them, but the entire population of Hicksville, Ohio went on assuming things they shouldn't and after enough people say a thing in a small town, it becomes gospel truth. They started going along with it because it pissed off their parents and that was enough for it to wind up legal in the 1970s.

It wasn't like they had much time to think about it. After Jack moved in they spent a lot of time refuting ‘anonymous’ claims of child endangerment. (“Mine!” He called out after they sent the first wave of social workers off satisfied that Ginny was well cared for. “Definitely my parents.”) Carolina’s parents, despite the fact that they had never liked children much even when Carolina was small, tried for custody a couple of times those first few years. (“Power play,” Carolina sighed. “I can’t tell if they want me back under their thumb or if they want to put my baby girl there.”) They failed, of course, but it bound the little makeshift family even closer together.

Unfortunately, things started to go downhill after that, and the hill might just have been at the top of a mountain.

Carolina got into a car accident. She wasn't sure what happened, afterward. Just that things got ‘odd’ and the next thing she knew the car was kissing a fence at the bottom of the ditch. Carolina was fine, if shaken. Fell asleep, they and everyone else in town, decided. It wasn't impossible; she’d never shaken the exhaustion of pregnancy and new motherhood, and with Ginny beginning Head Start and needing supplies Carolina had taken on a second job. Jack spent his ‘free time’ making necessary repairs around the house, but he took on more of Ginny’s care (and so did Ginny herself) and they figured it was the best they could do.

They were forced to fight off another custody suit as a result of the accident and came to the realization that they knew the first names and birthdays of their caseworkers and their caseworkers’ children.

Things seemed to go fine for a while after that, but Carolina was still exhausted more often than not. Still, she had trouble sleeping, feeling her heart leaping and racing out of control some nights, breathless with something nameless.

“Stress,” she muttered to Jack when he found smoking at the kitchen table late one night. “I know they can’t take her from us, we’re doing everything right, but I guess I still worry about all this crap over Ginny.”

“Would you feel better…I mean,” he paused, sighed. “You know I want Ginny. You know I do. She’s mine; I've never cared about blood and paperwork that says she is or isn't. It’s all bullshit. But we could make it legal. Our parents can’t get any worse about this, can they? If it’d help you feel better, I mean. I don’t want to,” he waved vaguely, “get in the way or anything, with the rest of your life. You know?”

“What ‘rest of my life’?” she chuckled. “Prospects have been thin on the ground for a while here.”

“Yeah, but later, I mean. When she’s big enough you maybe don’t need me to look after her.”

“Jack, she’s always going to need you. You’re her dad. You’re my best friend, so I’m always going to need you around, too. And even if Mr. Right does show up, he’ll only be Mr. Right if he understands that. It’s just…you don’t have to. You've got a life, too.”

“Pickings are pretty slim over here, too, kid. And anyway, I didn't _have to_ do anything I've done. I wanted to. This is my life, the one I chose, because I wanted it. I want this, too. If it might make you feel better, and you don’t mind being stuck with me, I’d love to adopt Ginny.”

“YES!” Ginny bounded in out of the hall where she’d been eavesdropping. “I don’t know what that is, daddy” she said, burrowing into Jack’s arms when he picked her up, “but does it mean I get candy?”

“It means we’ll have to wear some fancy clothes, and Tim is going to have to wear his fancy clothes, and we’ll have to call him ‘Judge Archambault’ and swear to him that we’ll keep Jack even if he never learns to put the toilet seat back down and you fall in every day for forever. And Jack will swear to keep us even if we always leave the seat down and he hates it.” Carolina said. “If he thinks we’ll do a good job sticking together, we’ll all sign some papers. And then maybe Rosie and Sherman and Teddy Thomas won’t have to come over to make sure the lights and water work all the time. Think we should?”

“Yeah! I like dress-up. But all them can still come over, right? Sherman makes paper dolls.”

“If they want to come over, I guess they could,” Jack laughed. “But they don’t get to check the dates on the milk anymore.”

“They checked the tuna last time,” Carolina said as they left the kitchen and started to head back to the bedrooms. “And the freeze-” and she fainted on the stairs.

“Mommy?”

“Grab the phone, baby,” Jack told her, setting her down with a thump and grabbing for Carolina.

“I’m fine,” she wheezed, stirring. “What happened? My head hurts.”

“This isn't tired, Care,” Jack told her. He took the phone when Ginny brought it and held it and her tight. “You were fine and then you were white and then you were gone. This is something else; something serious.”

“Don’t call anyone, Jesus, it’s not serious. They’d have DCFS out before the ambulance even got here. Maybe it’s pneumonia or something. I've been short of breath, but you worry,” she said, standing slowly. She nudged Ginny’s hands back and stroked her face with a sad smile. “Mommy isn't steady right now, baby girl, and you _worry,_ Jack, so I didn't say anything. I’ll see a doctor, okay? I've got some time on Tuesday, I’ll go in. They’ll give me a prescription for something and it’ll be a big waste of money but I’ll go; don’t give me that look.”

None of them knew what hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy was on Tuesday morning, but by Wednesday afternoon they were pulling all the money for the new roof out of the bank and getting Ginny tested for it. What Ginny overheard scared her more than the medical terms flying around over her head; she knew things were serious when there was ‘Jesus’ and the f-bomb being dropped in the same conversation.

“Jesus, Jack, Ginny comes first. We get her tested, treated if we have to, and then me, and then the legal crap. We deal with life before legalities.”

“It’s been going on for years, goddamn it! We can’t just let it keep going. We gotta do both; get Ginny tested and you taken care of. You guys are all I've got. I’ll get another job, two, Jesus, it won’t kill _me_ to work more.”

“Oh, fuck you. I sit down at both my jobs. It’s just the stress doing it, and that flu or whatever I had, and whatever. Whatever. Get another job, and I’ll see if I can get health insurance from one of mine. We’re going to need it.”

It turned out that her heart wasn't sick like her mommy’s heart was, but that didn't mean much to anyone outside their little family. The dizzy spells kept coming, and then there was another car accident, which prompted more DCFS calls and custody attempts, and nobody would give them health benefits. The bills started to come like a river flood, dirty and relentless and destructive.

The formal adoption of Ginny Jenson was put on hold while they tried to keep up with the bills and the second and third jobs they both took on. Ginny, barely five, started school as the quietest, hardest working, most independent and efficient kindergartner ever. They had to give up the house that same year, but the apartment they found was nearly as cold and drafty, so at least it was a little like home, Carolina pointed out.

When Ginny was almost seven, her mother had another bad dizzy spell while walking to work from the doctors’ office. It might have been all right, all the doctors agreed, if she hadn't been cutting between cars, if there was a sign saying ‘no turn on red’ but…well. The poor lady who’d been driving had been absolutely beside herself. Nobody blamed her, not even Ginny or Jack.

After the funeral, the Jenson’s went for custody yet again. Jack Potts had given up or lost a lot since Ginny was born, but none of it was his love for his baby. He fought back viciously against them and Defiance County, which had stepped in because he’s wasn't her biological father. While he had grounds as Carolina’s common-law husband, he was hampered by his own parents trying to get her removed from his care because they wanted ‘better’ (“Better,” Jack snorted to her as he brushed her hair before school. “Like anything could ever be better than you.”) for their son. Ginny was old enough to say where she wanted to be, but nobody but Jack seemed to care what she wanted.It was a brutal, expensive, uphill battle and it obviously wasn't going to be short.

Ginny had long been used to doing for herself and doing without, but she learned to pare it down to the basic necessities and shouldered even more responsibilities as her father got less and less sleep while trying to keep up with court appearances and social workers and all of his jobs. If it was hard and it was stressful, it was also all Ginny could remember her life ever being.

They were a solid team, she and Jack, and she was happy enough, but it made for an odd life. She didn't watch TV or think about buying a pony because she needed to keep the kitchen clean in case a social worker got sent over and they didn't own a TV anyway and they could barely feed themselves so the pony would _starve_ and after saying _that_ few of her classmates wanted to talk to her. In her free time she studied and practiced reading and writing and math instead of going to roller skate like other girls did because she didn't own skates and it wasn't nearly as important as school, and that dropped the number of kids willing to talk to her even lower. The ones who did talk to her weren't exactly polite. It was an increasingly isolated life because nobody else _understood;_ other eight year olds weren't in such a struggle for their lives. But for Ginny, doing without friends wasn't such a hardship compared to just the thought of doing without her daddy.

They lost the apartment when she was nine, their landlord sick of the frequent, bogus calls bringing the cops and social services to their door. From there it was on to a series of motels, still fighting the system to stay together.

By the time she’d turned eleven, the Jenson’s had given up the fight; Ginny had proven to be made of an unyielding ice-cold calm, filled with uncanny self-possession during the mandatory visits with her mother’s parents. They could not control her; she controlled herself.

The Potts’ were sort of forced to give up around the same time the fight went out of the Jensons. Jack lost his job at Bargain Box because of the trouble they kept getting him into over Ginny and that was the last straw (“Can’t even tell if there was ever a fuckin’ camel,” Jack raged when he came in after just an hour after he’d left) he was going to take. Jack quit the other jobs his parents knew about and moved them out of the motel and into the car without telling a soul where they’d gone. Ginny’s school records had a P.O. box and the address of an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of town and that was about it. The social workers, who’d been on the case for years, knew who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Rosie and Sherman and Teddy Thomas decided not to look at things like addresses too closely. The lot of them just checked the appropriate boxes on the forms and filed them at the back of the cabinet. They let Ginny Jenson slip through the cracks, where she was, ironically, safer than she’d been in years, even though it meant living in a car through Midwest winters.

It also meant the adoption was kind of impossible until they had a more permanent address than ‘the Chrysler’, but for the first time in ever they were clear of court cases and lawyers’ fees and had the chance to save their money and get back on their feet. Jack picked up any odd job he could find. He was a fairly skilled carpenter, though he lacked formal training, and there were always little jobs that he could do, along with basic plumbing and minor home repairs. Ginny worked harder than ever at her studies because it was the only way out for them both and she knew it, knew from Jack’s parents that if he’d finished school instead of taking on the bastard daughter of his friend he’d be much better off.

“Financially,” he huffed, facing the street and leaning his back against the window that wasn't covered by a sheet while Ginny changed into her pajamas in the backseat, “only financially. I’d be a miserable son of a bitch without you, baby girl, and I’d choose you over all the riches in the world. Money doesn't mean a damn thing if you haven’t got someone who loves you. But I’ll have better for you, yet. I promise it’s not going to be like this forever.”

“Hey,” she laughed, because that sad tone of voice scared her, “we started with nothing and still have most of it left. We’re doin’ good.”

“We’re doin’ good,” he agreed. “But I’m gonna make sure you do better than this. You deserve better.”

Ginny tried to whittle down the basics even more, and it was a little surprising how well pepper covered the taste of food that wasn't, perhaps, the best quality out there. She picked up the nickname at the 7-11 where she bought it, from the sneering girl who worked the till and was the older sister of one of her classmates. She kept it because Jack made her proud of it, of her strength and ingenuity and her ability to work wonders with what little she was given.

When she was twelve, Jack realized there was a windfall twice a year, a two week gig that paid ready cash without questions and might even let him keep Ginny with him while he worked, if only he was quick enough to catch it. They were parked at the campground next to the fairgrounds when Carson’s Carnival of Traveling Wonders rolled into town late that May.

**Author's Note:**

> Expect updates to be slow, kids. Author is a full-time student and has a full-time job, plus spends about 20 hours a week on the bus just getting to work and school. But it's all mapped out, so it'll get done eventually!


End file.
